Follow UBC MBA on

Getting the most out of global study during your MBA

UBC Sauder is introducing the Professional MBA program – an evolution of our Part-time MBA. Built on the feedback of alumni like Nina Bagri, the Professional MBA is every bit as rigourous, but optimized to fit the lives of busy professionals.

When your life is moving at warp speed, you either keep up or burn out. UBC Sauder Part-time MBA alum Nina Bagri was determined to not only keep up, but to excel.

“My company has grown at a mind-blowing pace and I fundamentally believe what I experienced during the MBA program equipped me to stay ahead. I was propelling my career forward, during the program and after.”

Today, Nina works at STEMCELL Technologies as Associate Director of US Sales, Cell Culture Products, but when she started the Part-time MBA program at UBC Sauder’s Robert H. Lee Graduate School, she was a relatively new manager.

“I was on track to get to middle management,” she says. “But I knew if I wanted to get to an executive level I needed to strengthen my skill set.”

That’s where UBC Sauder came in.

Nina, who has extensive experience in sales, relished the opportunity to learn from the varied experiences of her fellow candidates.

“I’m not an engineer, I’m not a geologist, I’m not in IT, but my classmates were,” she says. “Having all those different perspectives in the classroom and then going back to work on Monday and being able to apply everything you learned immediately benefitted my career.”

During the program, Nina was also able to add international experience to her CV. UBC Sauder is renowned for the international makeup of its faculty, student body and study-abroad opportunities – all of which enrich students’ abilities to communicate and express themselves clearly and confidently in diverse settings. Nina took the opportunity to study near Paris in France.

“My experience at the ESSEC Business School was one of the highlights of the program for me,” she says. “I was exposed to new perspectives, new methods and I expanded my global network at the same time.”

Still, it was a pinch to fit the trip around her studies and career.

“I went away during the worst possible time,” she says. “It was my fiscal year end so I had to work during a good portion of my trip and then flew back the night before one of our annual meetings.”

With dogged determination Nina found a way to make it work.

“When you’re that busy, you run on adrenaline,” she says. “You’ve set your goals and you want to achieve them. But with regular work travel on top of classes, reading and projects, it was incredibly difficult to manage.”

To address concerns like those Nina faced, the evolved Professional MBA program considers how to better balance travel for school with the demands of working full-time.

For example, candidates have the opportunity to take part in global learning over the course of one intensive week, through UBC Sauder’s membership in the Global Network for Advanced Management. GNAM, as it’s known, is a consortium of 29 schools around the world, spearheaded by the Yale School of Management, that offer Professional MBA candidates unparalleled learning opportunities.

“GNAM gives you world-class content, like sustainability at UBC Sauder or behavioural economics at Yale, over the course of one rigourous week,” says Darren Dahl, Director of UBC Sauder’s Robert H. Lee Graduate School.

“Candidates can get international experience and gain a global business viewpoint in a period of time that can be easily managed. And with optimized hours spent in the classroom and additional time off, students can spend less time worrying about what they’re missing at home and more time investing in the experience.”